Bill Reviews The Dying Detective (1921)

Bill reviews The Dying Detective (1921) and found the 30-minute short wasting away as well.

(c) 2024 Bill Peschel

Fidelity to text: 1 injections

The few title cards fail to convey important parts of the story, and the last-minute “twist” is baffling and illogical.

Quality of film: 1 injection

Headache-inducing jerky camera movements and damaged film stock. The restored edition from the BFI can’t come fast enough.

Before there was Jeremy Brett, there was Eille Norwood.

The elderly character actor portrayed Holmes in 47 silent movies (45 shorts and 2 feature-length), and read the stories to faithfully portray the detective. He even learned to mimic playing the violin and shaved back his hairline to match the Sidney Paget illustrations.

Of the 47 movies, only three of the shorts can be watched today on YouTube, but they’re in a sad state of disrepair. The British Film Institute have the complete run in its archives, but its viewable only by researchers. They announced that they would be restored and released by the end of 2023, but we’ve heard nothing since.

It will be interesting to see the reaction if and when they come out. Will it be rapaciously received as the discovered and restored William Gillette “Sherlock Holmes” (1916)?

It will at least be a curiosity, because Norwood — anticipating Brett and another detective-actor, David Suchet — set out to portray a canon-accurate version of Holmes. He read the stories and studied the Sidney Paget drawings for clues to Holmes’ character and attitudes. As a longtime character actor — when he filmed “The Dying Detective” he was nearly 60! — Norwood had a reputation for losing himself in a role and do so convincingly with minimal makeup.

Norwood saw Holmes as an inaction hero, not an action hero. “My idea of Holmes is that he is absolutely quiet,” he wrote in “Stoll’s Editorial News,” a magazine aimed at cinema-owners. “Nothing ruffles him, but he is a man who intuitively seizes on points without revealing that he has done so, and nurses them with complete inaction until the moment when he is called upon to exercise his wonderful detective powers. Then he is like a cat — the person he is after is the only person in all the world, and he is oblivious of everything else till his quarry is run to earth.

“The last thing in the world that he looks like is a detective. There is nothing of the hawk-eyed sleuth about him. His powers of observation are but the servant of his powers of deduction, which enable him, as it were, to see around corners, and cause him, incidentally, to be constantly amused at the blindness of his faithful Watson, who is never able to understand his methods.”

While Norwood set out to seriously play Holmes, he had to work against the humor the screenwriter and director injected. The short opens with Holmes wanting to tell Watson about the mysterious death of Victor Savage, but the doctor is rushing to catch a train and can’t stop. Rereading his notes, we learn that Savage caught in London a fatal fever common in Asia. Culverton Smith, an expert on Asiatic poisons, stands to inherit.

His inquiry starts badly. A disguised Holmes pays a bum to distract Smith at the front door of his home while he searches Smith’s office. But Smith catches him at it and at gunpoint pulls off Holmes’ wig and moustache. Holmes leaves, muttering “as sure as my name is Holmes, I’ll get you yet.”

Holmes returns to Baker Street, where Mrs. Hudson awaits with tea and a package that came in the mail. Another comic bit ensues. He tries to open the box as Mrs. Hudson takes off his coat. She gets one sleeve free, but the other is trapped by a butter knife Holmes picked up to open the box. She has to get his attention before she can finish the job.

These bits of stage business hint that Holmes is not very good at detecting, very forgetful, and not mannered enough to remove his coat before sitting down to tea.

At least he’s suspicious of the small box, and as he carefully slides it open, he avoids the poison-coated needle that would have punctured his hand. Time to bust out the chemistry set.

Jump several hours, and a stricken Holmes bursts into his rooms. With the help of Mrs. Hudson, and takes to his bed. Three days later, Watson returns home. He’s told by Mrs. Hudson that it’s an “insurrectious complaint” and that no doctor should treat him, “especially that good old ass, Watson,” which must have raised a chuckle or two in the audience.

The rest of the scene mimics the story. Watson finds Holmes deathly ill and wants to treat him. A raving Holmes declares he caught deadly tampanule fever in the East End. We briefly see a flashback in which a woman? a man? collapses by a window in a hallway? a room? while people watch her (a Chinaman? It’s hard to tell; that’s how bad the filmstock is degraded).

Only one man can save him, and that’s Culverton Smith. Watson must tell him that Holmes is dying and needs his help, and, most importantly, return to 221B before Smith.

So Watson sees Smith, and he asks how Holmes contracted an Asiatic disease in London, the flashback continues with Holmes helping the collapsed man in the hallway.

Culverton visits Holmes, who admits that he has the same disease that killed Victor Savage. The villainous Smith tells him how he really caught it, and we’re treated to another flashback, this time of Smith setting the needle trap in the box. A shocked and delirious Holmes falls back onto his pillow, and Smith gloats about Victor Savage’s death, and we’re treated to another flashback in which Savage was working in Smith’s lab when Savage prepares a syringe and jabs it into Savage’s arm.

Holmes begs for help and promises to forget about Savage, and Smith agrees and fetches from his car his medical bag. When he pulls a gun from his bag, Holmes gets a drop on him first, and Watson pops out from behind the bed and cries “gotcha!”

Only it’s not Smith! It’s Smith’s butler in disguise. Holmes stands up, refreshed, and points out Watson’s hat left on the floor warned Smith that he walked into a trap. The butler tries to flee, but Holmes snags his coat. The butler explains …

… and we get another flashback, this time of Smith entering his chauffeured car and trading coats with his disguised butler. Smith settles back in his car and prepares to flee …

… Ah, but Holmes anticipated that move. He stationed two men outside and they capture Smith and bring him inside. Everyone meets on the staircase. The butler clearly has a few choice words for Smith, who can only clutch his manacled hands before being hauled away to gaol.

The movie ends with Holmes confessing he had been starving himself for three days and asking Mrs. Hudson for food.

Final card: “Holmes tackles another tough proposition…” and we see him trying to carve a small overdone bird.

The end.

The short works hard to keep the story moving with so few title cards. It’s a pity it couldn’t portray Holmes’ ravings to Watson about oysters and how the brain controls the brain. The poor filmstock doesn’t help. Until we see a restored version, this must be little more than a curiosity.